Litterbugs Beware: Turning Found DNA Into Portraits

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A dropped cigarette butt, a chewed-up piece of gum, a stray hair. Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg uses DNA she's picked up around New York City to generate 3-D portraits of those who left their trash behind. This rendering of a brown-eyed man of Eastern European descent came out of a cigarette butt Dewey-Hagborg found in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg/Heather Dewey-Hagborg

Dewey-Hagborg documents each sample, photographing it where she finds it. This cigarette butt was collected on Myrtle Avenue and Himrod Street in Brooklyn.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg/Heather Dewey-Hagborg

That cigarette butt, collected on Myrtle Avenue and Himrod Street in Brooklyn, showed characteristics of a brown-eyed female of European descent.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg/Heather Dewey-Hagborg

This wad of gum was collected on Wilson Avenue and Stanhope Street in Brooklyn.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg/Heather Dewey-Hagborg

The DNA collected from that wad of gum came from a brown-eyed male of Native American and South American decent.

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Litterbugs Beware: Turning Found DNA Into Portraits